Korean Job Discussion Forums

[peppermint]

Something one of my students did today got me thinking about my own experiences with French in elementary school.

I went from begging my grade three teacher to find out when we would start classes ( he made the mistake of saying "soon" the first time ) to utterly loathing the language by the time I graduated high school. My goal as a teacher is to keep that from happening to my students.

I'm interested in hearing how other people felt when they learned other languages at an early age.

[Son Deureo!]

Heh... When I was in third grade I was enrolled in a French class against my will as part of a Gifted and Talented program. WIth a native speaking teacher, no less. I hated it, and skipped it every chance I got. I didn't understand why this strange sounding man was telling me that "rouge" meant what I knew perfectly well was "red". When my parents let me stop going to the class, I hoped I'd never see or hear another word of French again.

Once French was forced upon me again in middle school, it seemed pointless, but I didn't have much choice. In high school, we started writing short plays (and acted them out), stories, and essays in French. Being the class goof that I was, I found that in French class, unlike every other class, I could say anything I wanted to and get away with it. I'd even get A's for it. As long as I was using the best French I could. I was glued to my French-English dictionary churning out all kinds of silliness, sex, and violence.

Next thing I knew, I was majoring in it in college. Oh, and I also found out that I could double the fun by trying it again in Spanish (seemed like an easy "A" after French anyway, so ended up with a minor in Spanish too.